England's most successful manager ever. A 100% career record and no goals conceded. Wayne Rooney was captain in every match and he stuck with the 4-3-3 formation throughout. Benefits of a settled team?

RB Leipzig are top of the Bundesliga after they came from behind twice to beat Bayer Leverkusen 3-2 away. They're now three points clear of Bayern who play Dortmund tomorrow. I think we've been following RB on ROKfootball since they were at least in the fifth tier. Somebody decided to redecorate their bus for them before the match tonight, thoughtfully in RedBull corporate colours.

And the Bbc reckons watching Cheltenham is more expensive than watching Bayern. Good news for SteveW then.

I think it was on the forum before but I can't see it. Why is it RB Leipzig are hated so much. Is it just the fact that they have had a lot of money pumped into them, or did they effectively destroy a smaller club and replace it with a corporate team.

Either way if they make Oliver Burke into the new Gareth Bale and Scotland get to the semi finals of Euro 2020 then I'm for them.

Rothesay Saint wrote:I think it was on the forum before but I can't see it. Why is it RB Leipzig are hated so much. Is it just the fact that they have had a lot of money pumped into them, or did they effectively destroy a smaller club and replace it with a corporate team.

It's partly that they bought the league membership of a small club outside Leipzig and moved them in to the city about the same distance that Anyang had to move. The old club remained though, so it wasn't like 80 years of tradition and history went up in smoke like at Austria Salzburg, their home team in Austria. It's also partly because the club is entirely controlled by Red Bull and unlike most clubs in Germany makes it very difficult for fans to become members. The club/corporation has explicitly explained that this is because they don't want traditional fan culture interfering with the club. The board is entirely made up of employees of Red Bull.

But it's mainly because the club represents very directly the corporate marketing model of "modern football" and has touched a nerve not unlike the Qatar World Cup or the Blazers taking over at Man Utd. Lots of supporters' associations and fan clubs have been campaigning against it because they see it as the antithesis of the culture they're trying to keep alive. They're not allowed to call the club RedBull in Germany because that's against the rules, so the RB officially stands for RasenBallsport which sounds almost as daft as something like Lawn-Ballsport.

As I've said to Mipo a few times, I find it hard to get too angry about because something had to be done to stop Bayern winning everything always. It's the first time a team from Saxony has ever been top of the Bundesliga and the first time in 20 years that a team from the former East has come anywhere near. A lot of people in Leipzig have got behind them and their home matches are now very well attended.

There was once a time when if there was one group you could rely on to play every match to win, it was teams from England. Even if there was nothing on the line for them, teams like Leicester would play with pride and passion, giving 100% effort and doing their best, out of a sense of fair play if nothing else.

I'm going to go and watch some German tier 6 at the weekend. Maybe one of the teams there will overturn a 4-0 first-leg deficit and win the second leg 6-1 in the fifth minute of injury time. Or maybe not.